Chapter 3
Bobo Macdonald – Margaret, or Miss Macdonald to everyone except the immediate royal family – had a few whiskers of her own, but she was very much not one of the men in moustaches. She was the Queen’s dresser and more: her original nursery nursemaid, her confidante, the only person except her sister to have shared a childhood bedroom with the young princess, and the only one trusted nowadays to prepare and preserve her clothes. There was nowhere Bobo didn’t travel with her mistress. She had even accompanied the royal couple on honeymoon.
That evening, she was on duty while the Queen got ready for her last night in France.
‘What do you think?’
The Queen was peering at herself anxiously in the cheval mirror in her dressing room at the ambassadorial residence. Her third evening gown of the visit was a new step: the first time she had ever worn a body-skimming column dress, instead of one with her signature full skirts, like her mother’s.
The silk glittered in the lamplight, heavy with handsewn crystals. It was a beautiful creation, but was it too much? Or not enough? Its designer, Hardy Amies, had also created the peacock-blue gown she had worn last night. When he showed her the sketch for it, she had wondered about the strong colour. He suggested it worked because ‘you are a femme de trente ans, ma’am’. It was the unkindest thing he had ever said to her, and she had told him so.
Perhaps to make up for it, Mr Amies had put her in this shimmering silver column, which was just the sort of thing Marilyn Monroe might pick. Could this femme de trente ans get away with it?
‘You look magnificent. Your best frock yet. Och, you know you do, Lilibet. Look at you!’
At least Bobo was convinced about this one. The Queen turned to check her silhouette from different angles. She missed the comforting swish of net skirts. Last November, when she had met Miss Monroe at a film premiere, the actress had been in a golden figure-hugging dress that might as well have been a bathing suit. The Queen herself had chosen a black velvet crinoline, narrow at the waist and roomy everywhere else, and was grateful for the confidence it gave her. Poor Marilyn in her golden frock had chewed all her lipstick off by the time they shook hands.
She had been the sweetest thing to talk to, though. Marilyn was staying near Windsor at the time, and they talked about how nice it would be to meet up there too, not that either of them had the time. The Queen had the impression of a bold but fragile creature, like a young racehorse or a wild deer. She had wanted to lend her a fur and wrap her up.
Anyway, that was then. Now, she was the one in the slinky dress. She needed a second opinion. ‘Bobo, can you call the duke for me?’
To everyone but the Queen, Prince Philip was ‘the Duke of Edinburgh’, or ‘sir’. He didn’t have a Bobo of his own to call him by a nickname and be treated as a trusted friend. Certainly not since he had recently lost his own much-missed private secretary in a divorce scandal. At least he had her.
Bobo spoke to the page outside the door, who passed on the message to Philip in his dressing room. The reply came back that he would be a couple of minutes, which gave the Queen time to touch up her lipstick and put on the jewellery that Bobo had laid out for her. While she fiddled with the earrings at her dressing table, Bobo sought to calm her mistress’s rare attack of nerves.
‘Did you see the newspaper headlines? The French are calling themselves monarchists! It’s just you and the Chelsea murders on the front pages at home.’
‘The Chelsea murders?’ the Queen asked, turning round with the left earring in her hand. ‘What murders?’
‘Oh, it’s dreadful. Two bodies, found in one of those little mews houses off the Old Brompton Road. It was all over The Times and the Daily Express.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The ambassador gets them by air from London. The housekeeper showed me.’
‘Did they say who they were?’
‘Not yet, dear. Just that it was a man and a woman, and she was no better than she should be. The awful thing is, it seems almost certain the Dean of Bath did it, or one of his guests.’ Bobo shook her head. ‘He rents the house where it happened for his visits to London. He looks such a mild-mannered man in the photograph, although they say he had a good war – so not that mild-mannered.’
‘Was it definitely murder?’ The Queen knew the dean in question a little. An upstanding member of the Church of England and a charming occasional dinner guest at Windsor.
‘Oh yes, dear. It was all very violent. And a little bit suggestive.’ Bobo pursed her lips and her eyes gleamed. ‘The girl was wearing nothing but satin lingerie and diamonds. Lying on the bed like Snow White, the papers said, but they probably make that sort of thing up, don’t they? And I don’t think I’ve ever seen Snow White depicted in her smalls.’
‘Who was depicted in her smalls?’ Philip asked, striding into the room and looking somewhat distracted as he inserted a cufflink into a recalcitrant cuff.
‘The dead woman in Chelsea, sir,’ Bobo explained.
‘Oh?’ He didn’t look up. The cufflinks were gold, held together by a delicate chain, and fiddly to use. ‘And how did she die?’
‘According to the papers, they were both strangled and the gentleman was stabbed in the eye. Isn’t it wicked what some people can do? It beggars belief.’
‘Oh, I can believe anything of some people,’ Philip said. He glanced up from his shirtsleeve. ‘You wanted to ask me something, Lilibet?’
The Queen had put on her earrings by now. She placed her tiara in position and stood up again, saying nothing, because she wasn’t quite sure how to ask for what she wanted.
He looked her up and down.
‘New dress?’
‘Yes.’
‘Haven’t seen you in that style before.’
‘No.’
‘It’s different. Very . . . sparkly.’
‘Oh.’
There was a short silence.
‘Isn’t she a picture?’ Bobo said, with an edge of Scottish censoriousness in her voice.
Philip took his cue at last.
‘You look ravishing, my darling.’ He grinned rakishly and strode towards her. ‘If Ava Gardner was a couple of inches shorter . . .’
He took his wife’s hands in his and kissed her palms, one after the other, and she was reminded how irresistible he was himself, and how hopelessly devoted she was. Not just because of his Viking-blond looks, but for his ability to make her weep with laughter one minute and to be quite serious the next, as he was now, aware of how important this visit was, how much was asked of her, and how much she needed him.
‘Good, well, that’s settled, then,’ Bobo said. ‘Your tiara’s a bit wonky, dear. Don’t forget the necklace. I’ll go and fetch your fur.’
Outside the room, at the top of the stairs, a small group was gathered. It consisted of the ambassador, two military equerries who assisted the royal couple in their public duties, Sir Hugh and Philip’s new private secretary, all ready to accompany them down. They were speaking in low voices but the words ‘Cresswell Place’ were audible.
‘What’s that?’ Philip asked. ‘What’re you talking about?’
‘The murders in Chelsea,’ the ambassador explained. ‘Have you heard?’
‘Oh that. Strangling and stabbing,’ Philip said, fiddling with his second cuff. ‘Those the ones?’